Alfred Lapadula / Lapadula and Villani
I first met Alfred Lapadula in the fall of 1974. Our friendship grew over a period of many months. We were both staying at the Ikoyi Hotel in Lagos, Nigeria. I was working for Continental Seafoods Inc (CSF) and in Nigeria in connection with the establishment of the Nigerian National Shrimp Company (NNSC), a joint venture with the Nigerian Government. The NNSC was a joint venture between my CSF, the Federal Military Government of Nigeria (FMG) and the Mid West State Government (the State where are facilities were to tbe based).
Alfred was in Nigeria to sell off an inventory of heavy duty construction equipment. He had had a very successful rigging company in New York City for many years and was responsible for many of the heavy lifts that were a part of the New York construction boom of the 1960s. For example, all the air conditioning equipment on the roof of Madison Square Garden were put in place by the Lapadula and Villani rigging company. However, in the recession of the early 1970s, his company wasover-extended and he was liquidating as much of the equipment as he could in the new oil rich booming economy of Nigeria.
There were only a few expatriates that were spending a lot of time in Nigeria ... most came and went in a couple of weeks ... but there was a small core of long term residents of the hotel. We were all residents of the Ikoyi Hotel in 1975 when there was a coup of President Gowan. Most of us were also in Nigeria when President Murtalla Mohammed was assassinated.
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Lapadula and Villani ... Aircraft Recovery
While Alfred's company withdrew from building construction, the company continued to be on retainer to move aircraft that were disabled for any reason at the three New York airports. The pictures here are of a DC-10 that ran off the runway at Logan Airport in Boston into the icy waters of the harbor.
After a week on television with Boston contractors working to recover the aircraft and failing, Lapadula and Villani from New York were pulled in to do the job. After 24 hours ... on the second tide of their involvement, the aircraft was removed and it stopped being a continuing news story on TV.
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Alitalia and some connections with Italy
Alfred and I travelled very frequently between New York and Lagos during a time when getting seats on flights from Europe to Nigeria was very difficult ... but courtesy of Alfred and the New York office of Alitalia we had very VIP status and were able to get seats almost any time we wanted to travel. Some of the time I travelled with Alfred, sometimes on my own. Being a friend of Alitalia had a whole lot more benefit than having millions of frequent flyer miles any other airline.
Another advantage of flying Alitalia from New York to Lagos via Rome was that in the event there was some problem with the connection, one was stuck in Rome. Being stuck in Rome is more of a benefit than anything else ... and and these forced stopovers gave me opportunity to learn something about Rome and also the opportuntiy to visit with FAO much more than might otherwise have been possible.
Alitalia never advertised itself as the most friendly airline ... but in many ways it was. One time when I was on a flight from Rome to Lagos, a Nigerian woman gave birth to a new baby. The cabin staff did an impressive job handling the event. Because of security issues in Lagos, the crew had a small sleeping area just off the passenger cabin. This was turned into a makeshift delivery room. The cockpit were in contact with an emergency medical service in Switzerland and a male member of the cabin staff carried messages verbally from the cockpit to the delivery space. There was one memorable moment when he called out instructions and the reply from the delivery staff was something along the lines that they were already well past that stage in the procedure.
After the successful birth, the Alitalia crew and passengers all celebrated. It was a really happy event ... well handled ... both professionally and in every other way. There were questions about how a pregnant woman could get on the plane ... especially a woman who it turned out was already 2 weeks overdue ... but it had been concluded that stopping all the Nigerian women who looked like they were pregnant would mean that the plane would never get loaded. It is amazing what Nigerian trading women are able to hide in the folds of their clothes ... so it was more practical to simply hope for the best!
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International Technological Services (ITS)
Alfed established a company in Nigeria to help with a variety of technical matters. One of the bigger jobs undertaken by ITS was to help the Nigerian police upgrade its communications capacity. A Korean company had sold the Nigerian police a military spec. radio-telex system to enable the police to be better prepared for the upcoming elections. ITS was contracted to help with the system installation and training. In addition ITS had the job of installing similar equipment in the President's offices in Lagos and Abuja.
I have some technical background, but not a lot of practical experience. Even so, I found myself volunteered to handle the installation at the President's office in Lagos while another colleague did the installation in the office in Abuja. I did my best to follow the installation protocol, and about 3 pm in the afternoon we were able to make the Lagos - Abuja connection. I set about getting things organized so that I could hand-over the equipment. Then at 4 pm everything stopped working. The link with Abuja abruptly terminated. Frantically, I tried everything I could to get back the connection ... and in the process found myself communicating with aircraft all over Africa. The radio was powerful ... albeit not intended for these sorts of communications which are strictly forbidden unless duly authorized. Late in the evening ... I gave up.
Next morning I went to the President's office in Lagos and tried again. Quite quickly I found myself in touch with the Abuja office. It turned out that at 4 pm the day before the electricity in Abuja had been turned off ... including ther electricty to the President's Abuja office!
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West Africa Trawlers (Lagos)
Alfred had no shortage of business ideas. Many people understood that fish was a profitable commodity in West Africa ... and the operation of a fishing company espeoially profitable. Alfred ... with some modest assistance from myself was able to assist a Nigerian entrepreneur to establish a fishing company based in Lagos. ITS took on the challenge of providing technical support in terms of assisting with the acquisition of trawlers and dthe recruiting of skippers and engineers with the requisite technical experience.
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St. Augustine Trawlers
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